Citing urgent need, the Elgin City Council voted 8-1 in favor of a proposal for a for-profit mental health and substance abuse treatment facility.

The facility, which will be near the Leo Nelson Riverside Drive Water Treatment Plant, still requires final approval of zoning amendments.

"There's an epidemic. We're at crisis," council member Tish Powell said Jan. 10, referring to the nation's opioid addiction and mental health problems.

Powell acknowledged that while there is a stigma associated with such treatment facilities — another proposed drug treatment center is being hotly debated in Wheaton, for example — she is willing to take a chance due to the need.

The zoning changes would allow Brooktree Woodstock IL LLC to operate Footprints to Recovery at 411 W. River Road. The 3.58-acre campus currently is home to International Teams, a religious organization from which Brooktree would buy the property. A final vote on the matter is set for Jan. 24.

Council member Toby Shaw said he could see why the location would appeal to Footprints. He said International Teams uses the building as a retreat, of sorts, where missionaries can come to decompress and re-energize.

Materials provided to the council indicate the building holds general office and classroom space along with 15 residential units with a total of 47 bedrooms. Footprints plans to eventually provide accommodations for up to 94 patients, who typically stay between two and four weeks. The firm also would provide services for up to 28 outpatients during any 24-hour period.

The materials state that the for-profit hospital would treat depression, anxiety, substance abuse and trauma. Patients would be screened prior to admission, and the facility will not accept court-ordered patients nor rely on any federal or state funding.

Safety personnel and nurses would be on duty at all times. Patients would have to be ambulatory and capable of self-rescue, in no need of mechanical or chemical restraints at any time and have no previous history of arson or other forms of violence. Private ambulance companies would provide nonemergency transport, according to the meeting materials.

Raising concerns was attorney Ken Shepro, who spoke on behalf of Providence Baptist College and homeowners who live close to the proposed facility. He asked about investors in the project and an issue that Footprints had with the the New Jersey Department of Human Services in 2014 regarding offering residential services without an outpatient license at its facility in Hamilton.

Brooktree CEO Hirsch Chinn said the matter in New Jersey was resolved amicably last year. As for investors, he mentioned his former employer, Tryko Partners of New Jersey, which runs nursing homes. Chinn said he left Tryko to form Footprints after a personal experience with a friend who died from a drug overdose.

While the Elgin facility would be run as a for-profit, Chinn claimed that his business already has provided more than $1 million in comped services at its existing operations in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Arlington Heights. A bed in Elgin would be kept open for staff to decide if care could be provided to someone in need, he said.

Community Development Director Marc Mylott told the council the zoning amendments allowed only for the type of facility Brooktree intends to open. It could not become a nursing home without receiving other amended zoning approvals, he said.

Former Elgin fire Chief John Fahy, now senior director of academic programming and public safety training at the Elgin Community College Burlington Campus, said a friend told him that first responders at Brooktree's Arlington Heights facility found staff caring and compassionate. In addition, the facility has only used that village's ambulance service three times since opening a few years ago.

Voting against the proposal was council member Richard Dunne, who said after the meeting that he believed Elgin already has sufficient treatment facilities.